"Torpedo!"
The sonarman's shrill voice echoed inside the cramped MIUW van. Bailey turned and was jerked back by the cord that connected her headset to the console. She untangled it from the console joystick and got as close as she could to the sonar console.
"Where?" she demanded.
The sonarman pointed at an oddly unstable signature on his screen. "There-it's not U.S., not Soviet nothing I've seen before. But look at that-and here-active sonar pings on passive." He reached up and cranked the speaker overhead to full volume. Sure enough, she could hear it now. The light, caressing quivers of sound that were characteristic of a fire control sonar. She turned back to Boston. "Tell Jouett-now."
"Captain." The sonarman broke in. "Ma'am this one isn't headed anywhere near the Jouett. " He pointed at a second set of lines on his display. "That merchant-that's the target......
RULES OF COMMAND
Don't miss C. A. Mobley's first electrifying novel, introducing National Security Agent Jerusha Bailey in a one-on-one battle with a German U-boat commander...
RITES OF WAR
Note from Cyn: the Rites of War series was first published by Berkley. It has been reformatted and re-released by Greyhound Books.
I’ve thought about rewriting sections of it, but I’ve decided to leave it just as it was originally published, although with a few typo corrections. Drop me a line at cyn@cynmobley.com and let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it! I sure did, rereading it. It was a challenge to write it back then.
RULES OF COMMAND
C. A. MOBLEY
Warriors, when irretrievably trapped will be fearless, in inextricable position will be resolute, when deeply penetrated will consolidate, and without other alternatives will fight. ... On the day orders are given, the seated warriors' tears moisten their collars, and the prostrate ones' tears streak down their cheeks. And when they are launched into inextricable positions, the valor of great heroes will arise.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War (514-513 B.C.)
Direct all the armies' legions as if exercising authority over one person. Direct them onto missions without explanation. Direct them into hazardous situations without revealing other prospects. Launched into annihilative places, they will survive. Trapped in lethal places, they will then live. Only troops perilously caught will have for victory sought.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War (514-513 B.C.)
Concerns in commanding armies are: scheming in impenetrability and being impartial in supervision; having the capability to subjugate the eyes and ears of warriors and soldiers, making them suppress their senses; modifying their assignments and adapting their plans, making the people suppress their judgment; modifying their campsites and winding their routes, making the people unable to think; leading them on joint operations as if climbing to a high spot and removing their ladder; leading them into deep penetration of other lords' lands and pulling their trigger; herding them as a flock of sheep, being herded to and fro without ascertaining the destination....
Sun Tzu, The Art of War (514-513 B.C.)
1
FIFTEEN MILES OUTSIDE THE GULF OF PANAMA: 23 SEPTEMBER 2003
NIRU 3
T'sing Lin was running out of air. The metallic taste tainting the last dregs of precious oxygen, the tightness in his chest, and the urge to breath faster were warnings he'd come to recognize.
It wasn't right. One hour for transit and attack maneuvers, ten minutes for the final approach, then thirty minutes for recovery. Two hours of air. More than enough if everything had gone well.
It hadn't, of course. The objective had been three thousand yards away from the briefed position, steaming north instead of west. By the time T'sing Lin had puzzled out the sonar anomalies and compared his contacts to the mission profile, he'd wasted fifteen precious minutes. It had taken him another ten minutes in an expanding search pattern to locate the contact, set up for the final approach, and slam the niru into the hull of the merchant ship. Now, vectoring back to the recovery location, not entirely sure that his grease-penciled track plot was accurate, and still dazed from the full-speed
impact against the objective, T'sing Lin was beginning to suspect that he was lost.
But if the niru-the arrow, in the Manchu dynasty vernacular-missed the training target, it would simply claim another victim, one who already had so much to pay for. T'sing Lin would die now, rather than at the time and place the Chinese Navy would decree. And his failure would simply compound his dishonor, not absolve it.
He took shallow breaths, forced himself not to pant, and tried to slow his pulse by sheer willpower. There was no reason to panic, none at all. This was simply one more mission, the last in the six-month training course. A short period, but longer than any deployment he'd made to date with the Chinese Navy.
Too long. And not long enough. He steered his thoughts away from that train of thought, focused on a calm and peaceful image. Not now-not with air at a premium. Not with absolution, the all-forgiving Tao of redemption, within his grasp.
Twenty minutes of air left, according to the clock mounted on the console. He could hear it click quietly, the hands methodically creeping around the dial to mark the passage of the minutes. An irrational flash of resentment at it, that it could move without worrying about oxygen use.
Indeed, if one ignored the needs of the human inside, the niru had a combat radius of well over fifty miles. Four massive banks of batteries connected in series, a compact, powerful electric motor to drive a highly efficient propeller, all the propulsion and sensor equipment fitted neatly inside an advanced torpedo design. The warhead took up another three cubic feet in the blunt, rounded nose of the niru. The piloting compartment was wedged in between the batteries and the explosives. Nineteen minutes.
T'sing Lin checked the gyro, deflected the niru slightly to the west, using the smallest movements possible. Successfully navigating an intricate course within the allotted time-and, he now realized, within the alloted air supply-was the goal of this final training dive. The last mission-except for one that would truly be the last.
He could fail. Purposely. Two of his classmates had already chosen that route, one only last week, preferring the quick bullet in the brain to the terrors of niru. The first failure had left T'sing Lin stunned-the second, slightly envious.
Eighteen minutes. T'sing Lin nudged the throttle forward. The reassuring whine of the electric motor overshot the ordered speed, then groaned as the governor dragged it back down.
Yes, the air was definitely getting worse. It was not just one of the waking nightmares that had increasingly plagued his time in the niru, one of the visions of cold, hungry deep water swallowing the twenty-foot vessel. It was out there still-he could feel it, the pressure against the hull, the seeping cold that robbed him of thought. Perhaps that was how it would be in the end, that the cold would kill him before the
No. Do not think about it. Concentrate only on the mission. They do not intend me to die. Not now. Soon. But not now.
USS SEAWOLF
USS Seawolf slipped silently through the water, barely more than a black hole in the churning ocean. Three hundred feet above her, the decreasing temperature in the ocean finally leveled off at a frigid forty-four degrees Fahrenheit, and the ocean settled into that stable configuration known as the isothermal layer.
The temperature gradient was of significant interest to Seawolf's commanding officer, Commander Ernest Forester. Below the thermocline, sonar waves would be bent
back up toward the surface before they ever had a chance to ping off the acoustically quietened hull of his ship. It was like a black cloak drawn close around his ship, and he welcomed the silence.
Tracer fire works both ways, and so does the protection of the isothermal layer-remaining below the layer, as it was known. While no curious sensors located above them could see the submarine, the Seawolf was equally blind. Still, on balance, safety was preferable to complete knowledge.
Until now.
"We'll have to come shallow, Captain," Lieutenant Commander Carl Dunning said. "No way we can copy the broadcast from this depth."
"Tell me something I don't know." Forester studied the message already decoded from the ELF net. The communications personnel had already translated the short combinations of letters into the plain-text message before him.
FROM: COMMANDER, SUBGRUONE TO: USS SEAWOLF
QUERY BROADCAST ASAP
Short and to the point-and no more enlightening than trying to decipher the muted crackling sounds a school of shrimp made. Why exactly was SubGru willing to risk Seawolf being detected? So far, there was every indication that they'd managed to slip out of harbor unobserved, enter the patrol area, and fulfill their mission with only the families of the crew members noticing their absence.
Not that staying covert was critical just now for any particular reason. Their mission was an odd one, all the more so for its lack of clear objectives. Someone somewhere-who knew who?-in the American intelligence community had spotted an anomaly just outside the Gulf of Panama. Forester grimaced, remembering just how hard he had tried to get more information on this mysterious anomaly. The closest thing to an answer he'd gotten was SubPac's final, exasperated answer. "It's underwater, okay? And it's hinky. Now go find it."
"Well. It's not like we have a choice, is it?" Forester crumpled up the message and tossed it to his XO, who caught it easily with one hand. "Still, they ought to tell us enough to let me exercise some of that command discretion they keep talking about."
"Life in a blue suit," the XO said easily. "When do you want to make this happen?"
"Now would be a good time. There's not a damned thing that would count as a contact of interest out here, although it would sure help if SubPac would tell us exactly what we're supposed to be looking for."
"Maybe they don't know," the XO suggested. Forester shot him an annoyed look. "That's what worries me most of all."
NIRU 3
Ten minutes.
His chest heaved, trying to draw oxygen out of the stale air inside the niru. T'sing Lin fought down panic. The tips of his fingers were blue and numb, and his vision was graying out at the edges.
Why, oh, why, was he here? He knew the answer. Because he'd stolen an orange from his unit's commissary and had been convicted of felony theft. Because a sailor convicted of a felony while at sea could be executed. Because the virus needed pilots to compensate for the lack of advanced microcircuits for independent guidance circuits. Because the Commander-Admiral had promised him that his wife and son, his parents as well, would die if he did not "volunteer." Too many answers. And too little air. T'sing Lin squinted at his chart and fought for consciousness.
USS SEAWOLF
"Conn, Sonar! Subsurface contact, bearing 140, range 9,000 yards. Bearing constant, range decreasing!" Forester swore violently. "What the hell is it?" "No classification, sir. It's submerged and it's doing fifteen knots. Recommend course two-two-five to avoid."
"Two-two-five," Forester ordered immediately. "Permission to go active, sir?"
Forester traded a puzzled look with his Exec. "What do you think?"
"Not yet. Not unless there's some indication she's detected us."
"Not likely."
"Not likely there's another submarine out here either."
"I'll be in Sonar." Forester stepped back into the black curtained-off area and crowded in behind the Sonar Supervisor.
The jagged lines tracing down the green screen were fine and discrete, showing only occasional perturbations in frequency. Another line fuzzed around the edges, indicating it was probably a propeller source.
"We're going to clear him by four thousand yards, Captain. At least."
Forester nodded. "But that doesn't answer the more important question-what the hell is it?"
NIRU 3
Three minutes.
His chest was hurting now, demanding that he breath faster, harder, pump oxygen into the starved tissues of his body. He could feel cold sweat trickling down his back. His vision was almost completely gone now, only a small circle of fuzzy light in the center of his field of vision remaining. The fact that he was almost blind seemed unimportant. Most things did now. Dimly, he wondered what really did matter.
Two minutes.
He squinted, forcing the slim, glowing hands of the clock into focus. Divers could hold their breath for two minutes, maybe even three. If he had stayed on course, hadn't missed a turn or a speed change, he would make it to the recovery net streaming out behind the mother ship. Just barely.
USS SEAWOLF
"Trailing exercise," the XO suggested. "Captain, that's the only thing we've seen in the last two months that could possibly count as a contact of interest. It has to be it."
"You think I don't know that?" Forester demanded. "But you saw the message. ASAP, it said."
"I know, it's just that-"
"We grab our traffic and get back down after her. Tell Sonar they damned well better regain contact as soon as we get back down below the layer."
Seativolf rose smartly to communications depth, deployed her trailing antenna, and broadcast her access code and identification to the satellite. Still completely submerged, she picked off the messages waiting for her and headed back down to follow the contact.
NIRU 3
One minute.
He was barely conscious now, panting despite his determined efforts to stay calm. Time, the passage of time-it was critically important, although he could not have said why. The clock in front of him held some particular significance. As the seconds ticked by, he became convinced that it was the clock of heaven, counting off the seconds until the world would be destroyed. He was uncertain as to whether that was something he should be glad about or worry about.
His suspicions were confirmed a few moments later. His entire world shuddered, tilted, then shifted ninety degrees to the right. The chest straps bit into his flesh as the tail of the niru jumped up, throwing him toward the console. He pawed ineffectually at the straps, wondering dimly where the release latch was, running his hands repeatedly up and down the length of flat nylon until it disappeared out of reach behind him.
He was upside down now, hanging from the straps, and he wasted a few precious molecules of oxygen to moan. The darkness that had been edging up around his field of vision surged forward, gobbling up the last bits of dim light. He fought it, praying and crying, trying desperately to keep the clock of heaven in view. But the world was ending, there was nothing he could do to prevent it, nothing anyone could do. The noise alone was driving him mad, along with the ceaseless rotation of his world spinning about on all three of its axes, until he no longer could tell whether the straps held him or he held the straps in place.
The noise increased, louder and louder, rhythmic and demanding, as the world was torn apart. At the last second, he screamed as light flooded in, certain that the sun was consuming him.
Light. Light and air. He lost consciousness for a moment, still screaming, while his body fought to suck oxygen in and pump it to the starved tissues. The anoxia receded quickly.
Finally, he was able to focus again. He looked up, barely able to move, into the faces of the crew.
His crew. The one that had strapped him into the niru just two hours ago. Hands behind his back unbuckled the hated straps, peeled them back from his flesh. They came away with a slight sucking sound, leaving bloody strips on his white jumper.
"You did well," a low, resonant voice said calmly. "A little slow on the first leg, but within standards. You are now qualified."
The crew broke into a cheer. T'sing Lin struggled to focus on the face behind the voice, wanting to see yet already knowing who had spoken. There was no mistaking Won Su's voice, especially not for one who'd seen the clock of heaven.
USS SEAWOLF
"Where the hell did it go?" Forester asked. Seawolf was safely back inside the isothermal layer, searching for the contact. "Furthest-on circle search-now."
"I don't know, sir." The sonarman sounded worried. "I was holding contact on it, that same little shitty propeller going on and on. Look-it spun up, then faded out right after that. It doesn't make any sense. If it was going faster, it ought to be easier to detect. Not go away."
Forester swore quietly.
2
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, WASHINGTON, D.C.: 24 SEPTEMBER
Jerusha Bailey scrolled through the message traffic queued up in her computer. Much of it had to do with events outside her area of responsibility. As Division Head for Western Europe, she paid particular attention to the traffic from those areas.
But not exclusively. The modern world was far more interconnected than her predecessors would have ever dreamed. Political power trickled through the various areas like water through cracked rocks, surfacing in the most unexpected of locations. What at first appeared to be random events often proved to have a connection to other world events-a revolution in Pakistan would spark food shortages in Argentina, inflation in Mexico would decimate the trade balance in France, and so forth and so on. Sorting out those connections and making plans for U.S. policy abroad was the job of Bailey and the other teams of area experts.
She paged through the database quickly, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Europe seemed relatively quiet, with Germany regrouping after their last aggressive onslaught and the rest of Europe hovering around like vultures, picking up concessions and reparations like buzzards.
That's the way it had always been in Europe, a seething cauldron of political tensions fomenting revolutions and insurrections. A relatively small land mass, as political entities went, Europe nonetheless possessed the highest concentration of ethnic nationalities and political systems of any part of the world. Regardless of all attempts to unify it into the European Economic Community, issue a single currency, and otherwise solidify the fractious population into a single entity, there was little hope for real and lasting peace.
Europe seemed quiet for the moment. Oddly quiet, in a way. For the last two years, Bailey had been expecting to see some reaction to the Chinese repossession of Hong Kong, but so far had been unable to discern any connections. There were the usual turmoils in central Europe, the influence of a surging German economy on the Common Market, but both trends were so historically predictable that they hardly warranted comment.
The subject line of one message caught her attention: SUBSURFACE CONTACT, PANAMA. Ever since her first days in the Navy, Bailey had been fascinated with submarines. After her release from active duty and transfer to the Naval Reserve, she'd stayed active in antisubmarine warfare. Now, as Commanding Officer of Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Unit 106, she had specific professional responsibilities regarding submarines.
She double-clicked on the message and scanned it rapidly.
A report from a U.S. submarine on special operations off the coast of Panama, with prosecution interrupted by the receipt of an ELF message. She shook her head, continually amazed at the effect of the fog of war.
The fog of war-a German term, coined by the military genius Karl Clausewitz. It was a concept that surfaced repeatedly in military operations. In the U.S., it was known as Murphy's Law: What could go wrong, would.
When the submarine had returned to prosecute the contact, it was gone. And SubPac's critical message, the one that the submarine had interrupted prosecution to download from the satellite? A warning about the tendency of a particular main coolant pump to overheat and smoke. A pump that wasn't even installed on the boat. She grimaced, imagining the sub skipper's mood shortly after receiving that particular message. It wouldn't have been pretty.
But still, this submarine contact off the coast of Panama intrigued her. She toggled over to a different screen, a geographic representation of all the U.S. ships and deployed military assets around the world.
As the names of the ships and their positions quickly painted across her screen, she swore quietly. Coincidence? Probably-but then again, maybe not. The map showed one particular ship just off the coast of Panama, located near the Pacific entrance to the Canal: the USS Jouett.
Jouett. Collins's ship. At least I think she's still there. Surprised that she even got the Executive Officer slot after what happened in the English Channel. Terry must have had a hand in it.
Terry-that had to be it. Terry Intanglio, her boss and protector inside the NSA, the one who'd both hired her and kept her on after Germany, over the strong objections of her immediate superior, Jim Atchinson. Bailey had been surprised when she'd had a job to come back to after Germany, but Terry had explained that there was little that anyone could do about it. After all, Bailey was a decorated national hero after both leading the U.S. defeat of German forces in the English Channel and exposing the machinations of a renegade faction inside the U.S. military itself. Heads had rolled, several promising military careers had been cut short, and the President himself had pinned the Meritorious Service Medal on her uniform shirt. Evidently, the grant of immunity had been extended to June Collins as well, since the short blond Naval officer who'd fought Bailey every step of the war had been selected soon after for the Executive Officer slot.
But what was the connection here? Jouett and Collins in the immediate vicinity of an inexplicable subsurface contact? Or had there been a submarine there at all? She frowned and picked up the phone. If anyone could come up with an alternative explanation, it would be Peter Carlisle.
A few moments later, Carlisle's smiling blond head popped up on the screen of her computer. His eyes were slightly unfocused for a moment, until her image resolved itself on his own screen.
"Jerusha? What's up?"
“Maybe nothing. You got a minute?"
"Sure, shoot."
"In person, I think."
The smile faded into a puzzled look verging on concern. "Serious?"
"I don't know. Call it a hinky feeling. It has to do with some of the players in Germany two years ago." She waited, giving him time to absorb that.
"On my way," he said after a moment's pause.
Pete headed up a section of the electronic-intercept support division, an esoteric collection of acoustic and computer experts who specialized in extracting discrete signals embedded in noise. After her first two weeks at NSA, once it became clear that Atchinson was not going to be leading her fan club, Pete had offered to have Jim's office wired for sound. At the time, she'd thought he was joking. After six months at NSA, watching and being the target of several sophisticated electronic practical jokes, she was no longer sure he had been.
Apart from a warped sense of humor, she and Pete shared one other common interest: the Naval Reserve. Pete had spent five years on active duty as a sonar technician on board a ballistic-missile submarine. When she'd learned he'd maintained his Reserve affiliation, she'd promptly recruited him to fill a vacant billet in her own unit. While Pete had more seniority than she did at NSA, he filled a senior enlisted billet in the unit Bailey commanded.
Minutes later, Carlisle appeared at her door. "What is so secret that you don't want to use taccomm?" he asked, referring to the computer-based tactical communication system. "And, before you ask, I'm not going back to Europe. My fun meter pegged way out last time."
"Collins. She's on Jouett." Bailey moved the computer screen around so that he could look at it. "You read that report on the contact down by Panama?"
He nodded. "You know I would have taken a look at it. Based on what the sub sonarman reported, I'd guess it was a real contact."
"That's what I thought. But whose? And is it just coincidence that Collins happens to be in the same area?"
He smiled slightly. "Probably. What, you think there's a worldwide conspiracy to put her in the immediate vicinity of anything that interests you?"
Bailey shrugged. "Maybe not. You don't find it odd that she's down there?"
"No." Carlisle's voice was firm. "I do not. Yes, there was some sort of subsurface contact down there, but I find absolutely no connection with Jouett."
"So what kind of submarine?" Bailey asked, dropping the question of Collins and Jouett.
"Diesel, probably. I checked known deployments and didn't come up with any candidates. But there are a lot of submarines out there that we can't track. I'm betting diesel based only on how hard she was for the nuke to pick back up. The only nuke in the area aside from ours was a Chinese one in port, and it's a piece of shit. And old Soviet Victor boat-Seawolf would have seen her. Besides, I've got imagery of her tied up at that time." Noting her surprised look, he said irritably, "Yeah, of course I checked. I even halfway suspected we'd be having this conversation, although I didn't know about Collins and Jouett. And before you ask, I've got acoustics, too. So there."
"So now what do you think?" Bailey persisted. "Knowing Collins is down there?"
"Get off it, Jer. The same thing I thought before-an unknown diesel submarine in the area. Maybe even Chinese. God knows those little bastards are hard to keep track of."
Bailey leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The feeling that somehow this was a connection she should see, a power surge she ought to understand, was virtually irresistible. China had a long-standing interest in Panama. Most of the traffic through the Canal was still going to and from America, but China's takeover of Hong Kong had expanded her international trade role far beyond anything the U.S. had anticipated.
And soured many of her relations with the rest of the world. Especially since China shows no sign of loosening up her human-rights policies. Not that she seems to care much. China had not even filed a formal protest over losing most-favored-nation status with the U.S.
"Maybe China's interest in Panama is more that just friendly," Bailey mused. "Maybe she feels a bit more comfortable down there with a few submarines around."
"Maybe. But that's a hell of a reach, Jerusha." Carlisle hesitated, then continued slowly. "I can't brief you on the particulars, but there's nothing in the electronic intercepts that would indicate forward deployment of an additional submarine."
Bailey nodded, appreciating his difficulty. Carlisle's field of expertise was so highly classified and esoteric that the results were rarely available to other divisions unless there was a demonstrated need to know. And under the circumstances, there was little reason that the Division Head for Western Europe would need to know about electronic intercepts around the Panama Canal. He'd stretched the limits of his releasability guidelines just telling her that much.
"Trouble never starts how or where we anticipate it," she said finally. "While Panama isn't exactly in my backyard, this whole thing concerns me. If you find out there's anything you can tell me, let me know."
He nodded. "I will. And I'll keep an open mind about the Jouett connection too. You never know."
And that, Bailey thought as she watched him leave the office, was the essence of the problem with U.S. national security policy. One planned for the known problem areas of the world, but in the end one never knew exactly where or how the world would start to come unglued next.
3
GULF OF PANAMA:
25 SEPTEMBER
USS JOUETT
Lieutenant Commander June Collins, Jouett's Executive Officer, made it a habit to tour Combat every night just before turning in. Tonight was no exception-it was 0130 and she could hear her rack calling to her, promising the prospect of four hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Collins shook her head, trying to clear away the dull pounding induced by too little sleep and too much coffee. There were ways to survive mid-watches, methods of coping with the sleep deprivation and distorted circadian rhythms that were the hallmarks of a United States Navy officer. She'd learned to nap when she could during the day, stealing a few precious minutes during chow hours, skipping meals, knowing that the cooks would leave leftovers in the reefers for watch-standers. As a final option, there was always the ubiquitous peanut butter and jelly.
Tonight, she'd been lucky. Pork chops on the menu, a main course that was well suited to prewatch snacking. She could still taste the grease at the back of her mouth, feel the tough, fibrous feel of the meat as her teeth cut through it.
Jouett was steaming within a box just off the coast of Panama, en route to drug-enforcement operations in the Caribbean. Tomorrow at 0900 she would transit the Canal, outchop into the Atlantic, and begin the frustrating and often futile mission of trying to hunt down the myriad small craft that ferried drugs between Central America and the U.S. coast.
Collins nodded to the TAO, Lieutenant Garland Williams, and slid into the console seat next to his. "Any problems?" she asked as she slipped the communications headset on.
"Would have called you if there were, XO," he drawled.
Collins stopped her sharp reply. It wouldn't do any good. Hadn't for the two months that the new Lieutenant had been on board. His remarks consistently carried a subtle undertone of sex, words and phrases fraught with double entendres and insinuations. She'd tried confronting him before. Hurt innocence was something else he did well, although she could see a vicious sort of amusement playing at the corner of his mouth as he protested his innocence, her misunderstanding. All a confrontation would do now would be amuse the rest of the watch section.
She slipped the headset on. Soft voices murmured to her, tracker alley piped into her right ear and surface plot into the left. She nodded-quiet, calm reports of the merchant traffic in the vicinity, an occasional update on a contact approaching. It sounded like she'd be able to get to her rack on time after all.
The Captain was in his cabin, probably asleep, although she could never be certain of that. In her four months on board Jouett, he'd repeatedly demonstrated his predilection for roaming the ship at odd hours, apparently taking some pleasure in catching people at their worst. The one time she'd skipped her nightly stint in Combat, she been awakened four times in the next two hours to answer questions from the watch generated by the Captain's repeated visits. Finally, she'd gotten the hint.
She studied the large-screen display that dominated the forward half of Combat, noting a relatively slowmoving contact that had just popped up. It tracked erratically for a moment, indicating that the Aegis system was correlating the contact from several radars. "What the hell is it doing?"
Williams shrugged. "Who knows? It's commercial air. Course and speed fit."
"Why's the system boggling on it?"
"Atmospherics probably. Ducting or something." Lieutenant Williams yawned, took another sip of coffee, then shot her a pointedly amused look. "Or maybe he's just trying out some aerobatics. Who knows why CommAir does anything? Come on, XO, chill out. This isn't Germany."
"Nor is it the Pentagon," she snapped. "Maybe you were safe and sound behind a desk back there for the last three years, but things are a little different in the real world. You'd know that if you had had normal assignments."
Williams's eyes grew cold. "You've got a problem with my performance, XOT'
She sighed, shook her head. If only it were that simple.
Lieutenant Garland Williams, Annapolis '97, originally headed for the skies as a Naval aviator until a previously unexpected intolerance for high-performance maneuvers washed him out of the flight program. Vertigo, he called it.
Puking was more like it. If his father hadn't been Admiral Garland Williams, he would have been sent home years ago.
But Daddy's influence bought Sonny Boy a cushy job at the Pentagon, followed by redesignation as a surface-warfare officer. Garland Junior was sent to sea to play catch-up, entering the surface-warfare track with his first assignment as a department head on board Jouett, an assignment most officers garnered only after two Division Officer tours.
It was a plum for Junior-and a pain in the ass for the rest of the wardroom.
"Keep a close eye on it," she said, ignoring his question. "You don't know what can happen out here." "It's squawking IFF as Panamanian National Airlines Flight 103," Williams said after glancing at his data console. "Since when were we at war with Panama?"
PANAMANIAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 103
Panamanian President Jose Garcia loosened the seat belt that was cutting into his midriff, and glanced around the spacious cabin of the converted C141 transport plane. The aircraft had started its life as a military cargo vessel for the United States Air Force. Shortly after the Canal had returned to Panamanian control, the United States had had it extensively refurbished, the interior redesigned to accommodate passengers, and divided this forward portion into a first-class cabin. For the last three years, it had been part of the small but growing Panamanian National Airlines.
Most of the other seats in this section were occupied by members of the President's entourage-three bodyguards, his national security advisor, two aides, and a few secretarial personnel. The remaining few seats were left empty for security reasons. A retractable steel-mesh door divided the first-class compartment from the coach section, and normal paying passengers occupied those seats.
No doubt, Garcia reflected, it was no secret that he was on board. Perhaps some of the passengers were wondering, as were the stewardesses, why he had not taken his Presidential aircraft. Why should they be inconvenienced with additional security procedures when the President had other means of transport?
It was a fair question-and one he wished he didn't have to answer. But after the two assassination attempts and threatened coup by the military just two months before, he no longer felt safe trusting the all-military force that crewed his own aircraft. A sad state of affairs, but not an uncommon one in the steamy politics that dominated this portion of the world.
Of all the nations, Panama was particularly susceptible to the whims and vagaries of hot-blooded Latino politics, straddling the border between North America and South, and now in sole control of the only expeditious passage between the Pacific and Atlantic in this part of the world. That his own Administration had lasted so long he took as a tribute to his personal leadership.
That, and successfully weathering the transfer of the Canal to Panamanian control, over not only widespread United States objections but those of his own countrymen as well. More than half of all Panamanians had opposed taking control of the Canal, not so much for the responsibility it imposed on the small nation, but for the resultant loss of dollars and trade that the U.S. military presence pumped into the economy. That those dollars had not been substantially replaced by America's foreign-aid program had been duly noted.
Still, they were making progress-steady progress. A host of Asian nations had been willing to step into the gap left by America's absence, and Garcia had had to pick and choose carefully among those offers of assistance and friendship.
The ones he'd decided to accept-were they a mistake?
He still hadn't decided, not even after eight years of closer ties with the Chinese government. What had started as a small trade delegation had expanded into substantial shipping facilities on either end of the Panama Canal, at Colon on the Pacific side and Balboa, a subdivision of the city of Panama, on the east. Over two hundred Chinese merchant ships now flew the Panamanian flag, and a small military assistance group was a growing presence in both facilities, ostensibly to provide harbor-side security for the Chinese merchants, but more likely to ensure that the Canal was always open.
But the final straw had come last month, when a Chinese trade delegation had announced their intention to conduct routine port visits and goodwill missions with both military warships and nuclear submarines. The first of those submarines was already tied up on the western side of the Canal, and two more were allegedly under way to join it. What had started as a partnership of equals had metamorphosed into something much uglier.
That was the occasion for this flight-and the reason for so many sleepless nights in the past three months. He'd spent days, weeks, every waking moment welding together a coalition of political forces that would finally assert Panama's true independence. And this one mission was the final result. Of all the forces operating inside Panama, the only ones not fully in support were the Panamanian military, long invested with an unreasoning dread of American occupation. So unreasoning that they were willing to accept the assistance of a race as alien and cold-blooded as the Chinese.
Well, no more. In this meeting with China's President, he would make Panama's right to self-determination clear. There would be a discussion, of course, of the possibility of military shipboard visits, but in the end this was one point he would not concede. There would be no more military port visits, most particularly not from the submarines. The one now tied to the pier would be put under way as soon as possible, and the other two would be diverted. Panama would not be intimidated – could not be, not after their long wait to free themselves from American influence.
Garcia felt a flood of confidence and courage as he contemplated his own determination. Yes, it would be good to step out from under the Chinese yoke, to stop this unhealthy relationship before it proceeded any further. He touched the lever on the side of his chair, tilted the seat back, and wondered if it might be possible to catch a nap.
USS Jouett
As Collins watched, the speed leader in front of the commercial air track wavered, doubled in length, and then splintered into four separate lines radiating out from the contact symbol. The entire contact shivered momentarily, then resolved itself back into what it was supposed to be.
She glanced at the data display to her left. Eight hundred knots now, altitude decreasing steadily. The contact changed course slightly, now headed directly toward Jouett. The track supervisor should have been squawking about it as soon as it changed course. "Track supe, XO," she said. "What's going on with 7408?".
"XO, track supe. Noise level just spiked up to ridiculous, XO. The system is-wait, it cleared up. I don't know what it was. Maybe sunspots or something?"
"Sunspots." Possible, she supposed. Electromagnetic shielding kept exterior radiation from reaching the sensitive electronics inside the SPY-1G radar system, but it couldn't do anything about the environment outside the ship. Noise in the search radars degraded the signal, and she'd seen a defense-contractor videotape of some spectacular effects from sunspots.
But never anything quite that well-defined. That hadn't been like any noise spike she'd seen before. And if not the sun, what was dumping energy into the atmosphere?
"It's cleared up now at least," the track supervisor continued. "I'll put a note in the pass-down log about it, though."
"Is it on a commercial air corridor?" she asked. "Slightly off-maybe fifteen miles south of it." He was starting to echo the uneasy tone in her voice. "And opening-ma'am, he needs to turn north to reenter the corridor. Like now. Look-I'll put it up on your screen."
A set of narrow red lines blipped up on the screen, delineating the standard commercial air corridor to their north. The errant airliner was moving away from it, and if the contact data was correct, making no attempt to vector back into its assigned airspace.
"All stations, this is the XO. Anyone got anything on this contact?" Beside her, Williams rolled his eyes. She bit back a rebuke.
A chorus of negatives from the surface track supervisor, Sonar, the lookouts, and the SLQ-32 electronicwarfare technicians. The speed leader on the contact wavered again. Collins stood, driven to her feet by the uneasiness seeping up from her gut and tethered to her console by the headset cord. "What are you doing, mister?" she said softly, as though she could reach out and talk directly to the off-course pilot. "Come on, turn north, north, north.....
'Crap, it's-XO, AWG-9 radar indications," one of the electronic-warfare technicians yelped. "Targeting mode. Jesus, it's-TAO, recommend unmask CIWS batteries. Now."
Visions of the USS Stark hit by missiles from Iranian P-3 aircraft in the Persian Gulf-no, she wouldn't be sucker punched like that. Never.
"What's happening?" Williams said. He stared at the large-screen display as though he could force it to conform to his version of reality by sheer will alone. "An AWG-9-no, it can't be. That's an off-course airliner, not an F-14! Track supe, check your-"
Collins cut him off. "General Quarters. Now, Mister Williams. Bridge, XO-hard right rudder to unmask CIWS."
"Stop it," Williams cried. "You can't-it's not-I'm the TAO!"
The speed leader cracked apart into four distinct lines running close together and almost parallel out from the airliner. She could hear the track supe screaming now, even without the headset. "Jesus, missile separation! XO, vampires inbound. Four-no, it's-oh, shit."
"Seeker head, seeker head," the EW yelled, his voice cutting through the mounting noise in Combat.
"It's not real!" Williams howled. "You're relieved. Get out of Combat."
Williams vaulted up from his seat and tried to pull her headset off. Collins slammed an elbow into his gut and followed it with a closed fist to his groin. Williams screamed, then crumpled to the deck. He clawed at the armrest on his chair, trying to pull himself upright.
Collins turned to look at the weapons console. "Assigning weapons to target. Weapons free now. Take contact with birds."
"Take contact with birds, aye," the weapons chief replied. She heard the uncertainty in his voice. "XO, that noise earlier-are you sure-T'
"Fire one." She drove one stiff, numb finger down on the button, manually activating the fire-control circuit. "Fire two."
The hard, shuddering rumble of missile launch momentarily drowned out the voices on her headset. She reached up to cover her ears, operating on sheer instinct and training now.
The four missile contacts on the screen vanished. Too soon to be the missiles-they couldn't have taken them out, couldn't be there yet-the last echoes of the launch were still echoing inside Combat, competing with the incessant gonging of the General Quarters alarm. The symbols for Jouett's missiles were now on the screen, arrowing straight toward the commercial air contact.
"Two birds fired," a voice said finally. "Dear sweet God-we just shot at an airliner."
"You tell me what airliner does Mach one-point-two and radiates fire-control radar," Collins demanded. "Tell me."
"None of them," a new voice said. She swiveled in her chair to look up into the face of the Commanding Officer of Jouett, Captain Dave Renninger. A look of cold white fury suffused his patrician features. "And you better pray to God that you were right."
FLIGHT 103
The missile slammed into the joint just where the vertical stabilizer connected with the rest of the fuselage. It tore through the thin aluminum outer shell, the continuous expanding-rod forehead of the missile ripping apart the metal as though it were tissue paper. The stronger structural supports lasted no longer, disintegrating into chunks of razor-sharp shrapnel that spattered the passengers in the aft section of the plane against the walls.
In the first microsecond of the impact, Garcia knew something was terribly wrong. The aircraft gave an unhealthy, sickening jolt forward, pitching nose-down at a twenty-five-degree angle almost instantaneously. Every bit of loose gear within the compartment rocketed forward, slamming against the forward bulkhead. For just a second, the aircraft jerked back upward, as if it would find some miraculous way to maintain level flight absent the aft one-third of the fuselage. The massive wings fought for lift, but the wildly unstable aerodynamics won out. The C141 tipped back nose-down and commenced an uncontrolled descent to the ground.
Garcia's face hit the seat back in front of him. Then centrifugal forces jerked him out of his seat and sent him pelting back towards the aft of the compartment. He slammed into the metal grating separating the two compartments, and was held there by the forces of acceleration. Bodies piled up on top of him. The screams of people dying, injured, and crushed were just barely audible over the roar of the air.
By the time the first chunks of flesh hit the bulkhead, the aircraft was already careening down toward the ground in a crazy, death-seeking, erratic spiral. Debris, bodies, and luggage from the open storage compartments trailed behind it, mixing with the aviation fuel pumped out into the air by severed fuel lines. The entire stream ignited into a convection trail of fire, its path following the clumsy spirals and twists of the aircraft's death throes. Black smoke billowed after that, quickly starting to shred and dissipate in what had once been a head wind.
At ten thousand feet above ground, there was sufficient oxygen in the ambient air to support life. The passengers who'd survived, including President Garcia, regained consciousness, slowly at first. By the time the aircraft was five hundred feet above ground, the screaming had resumed. It lasted but a few moments longer.
4
WASHINGTON, D.C.: 25 SEPTEMBER
THE BELTWAY
Jerusha Bailey swung her car out into traffic and headed for work. The sun was not yet up, but traffic was already starting to build on the Beltway. Headlights strung out like a diamond necklace stretched as far as she could see on the other side of the Beltway as the inhabitants of the myriad government facilities located in and around the District of Columbia each tried to beat the traffic in.
The radio spewed its usual patter of dramatized tragedies, weather reports, and traffic updates. Not that the latter would do anyone much good-there were few options other than the Metro for getting into D.C. proper.
"Navy officials are now confirming unofficial reports that the USS Jouett, a guided-missile destroyer, fired on and hit a Panamanian National Airlines jet earlier this morning. The scheduled commercial flight was on a normal route between Panama City and Hong Kong. As yet there is no explanation as to why the ship fired at the aircraft or whether there were any American citizens on board."
Bailey slammed on her breaks as the report concluded, narrowly missing the stopped Mercedes in front of her. She took a deep breath, concentrated on stilling the adrenaline tremor in her hands generated by the near miss.
Jouett again! Now just what the hell? She eased off the brake as traffic in front of her started moving again.
Collins. An aggressive officer, one who'd never run from a fight even if a tactical retreat was in order. She'd almost gotten them killed doing just that.
And now a blue-on-blue engagement, military euphemism for a harsher word: fratricide. Brother killing brother. It happened in the military, both in exercises and in real life, far more than anyone was willing to admit. Usually it occurred under more demanding operational scenarios. Well, maybe not, she realized, thinking of the USS Vincennes and her downing of the Iranian airbus a decade ago.
She gunned the engine, veered off onto the shoulder, and raced for her office.
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, DIRECTOR'S OFFICE
Jim Atchinson carefully laid his pen next to his legal pad and leaned back in the leatherette chair. He laced his fingers across his stomach and smiled at the man opposite him. "Frankly, I think this would be an excellent opportunity for Bailey."
Terry Intanglio, Director of NSA, looked startled. "Why Bailey? Hasn't she been under the gun enough in the last year?"
Atchinson took a moment to look around the small conference room before replying. It was luxurious by government standards, much more comfortable than the small meeting area on his own floor. Up here, genuine wood paneling replaced the two-toned white and green high-gloss institutional paint on his own floor, and the thicker brand of carpet tugged at the rollers of his chair instead of the industrial indoor-outdoor floor covering his own department had. Even the chairs were more comfortable, with marked lumbar support padding and soft, cushy arms.
In one corner of the room, stacks of china cups and saucers graced the top of a credenza. Next to that was a plate of crullers and doughnuts, sent up by the kitchen in anticipation of lengthy morning meetings. The kitchen was always the first to know, right after CNN, Atchinson reflected.
Finally, when he judged enough time had passed to give him the appearance of thoughtfulness, Atchinson shook his head. "You know, I was wrong about Bailey. She did a fine job in that German situation last fall." He paused for a moment to consider how his blatant falsehoods were playing with Intanglio. Seeing his boss nod, he continued. "Before that German affair, you had been talking about giving her a broader range of responsibility. Rounding out her professional education, as it were. This might be just the opportunity."
Intanglio leaned back in his own chair and looked thoughtful. "I hadn't realized you'd changed your opinion of her that much."
Atchinson shrugged. "We all make mistakes. I guess I was wrong about her."
Not like any of you gave me much choice. She was on active duty at the time, the Navy's responsibility. Not mine. And just how the hell am I supposed to treat her when she arrives back here with a presidential pardon in hand as well as a chest full of military commendations, hmm?
"It would get her out of the European Theater altogether," Atchinson continued, fighting down a wave of bitter resentment. "And really, with the high profile she's had since then, it would look like we were sending our best people out there. Give us some good press for once."
"That's worth considering. Okay, I'll give it some thought."
Intanglio watched Atchinson leave, mildly amused at the self-satisfied smile on the other man's face. As though he'd pulled something over on Intanglio, as though his boss didn't understand just exactly what the division chief was trying to achieve. Bailey's success in Germany had rankled on Atchinson, beginning with her insistence on doing her two weeks' active duty while events were heating up in Korea, and ending up with her unraveling the puzzle of events in the English Channel to discover that the Germans were behind the Korean war. That he'd been outsmarted, out-thought, and out-warriored by a mere woman ate visibly at the man.
Still, there was something to what Atchinson said. Sending Bailey to head up the NSA detachment in Panama would give Intanglio another set of eyes on the problem of Panama. Except that it wouldn't happen exactly as Atchinson proposed.
No, they'd send her in under the cover of her Reserve duties, gaining the on-scene intelligence they needed without exposing the Agency to unwanted publicity.
"There's something you forgot, though, buddy," Intanglio said aloud to the empty room. "Just one small thing. The situation is going to shit down there and you're worried about our publicity. And that, my friend, is why you'll never be promoted again. Not as long as I'm here."
5
THE GULF OF PANAMA:
26 SEPTEMBER
USS JOUETT
The ship lingered just outside the twelve-mile limit of the Panamanian coast, steaming back and forth inside its small box like a tiger pacing a cage. Commander Renninger's instructions from Third Fleet were explicitexercise his freedom-of-navigation rights in international waters, but do nothing to further provoke the Panamanian government. Conversely, he was also ordered to maintain an American presence in the area as a sign of continued U.S. support to the Canal Zone.
For the first twenty-four hours after the shoot-down, Collins haunted Combat, doggedly playing back the engagement time and time again. She compared her electronic track with the paper track maintained by the navigator and surface plot in Combat. She watched the data until her eyes blurred; the white track streaking out from the coast, designated as commercial air, then suddenly losing altitude and accelerating through Mach 1.2. She stared at the screen until she could no longer tell track from the vague glimmers of phosphorescent green in the screen, desperately searching for some clue as to the genesis of her mistake.
The intelligence specialist on board kept busy logging the commercial activity through the western entrance of the Canal. Twenty-eight Chinese-flagged merchant ships were now in port, taking advantage of the state-of-theart facilities built by their owners. The Chinese port station was almost completely automated, and cargo flowed through it so quickly that there was constant traffic in and out of the harbor.
The Canal remained open, and the few ships that still flew the American flag suffered nothing more egregious than bureaucratic delays, lost paperwork, and general administrative red tape. The Panamanian government was making their point-not aggressively, but a point it was.
Finally, Renninger cornered Collins in Combat and insisted she get some sleep. "You're not doing us any good here."
"I just keep thinking I might have missed something," she said, her voice hoarse.
He shook his head. "The IFF-that's what you missed. Anything else, it'll come out in the investigation."
There was an aura of competence that always surrounded large men, Collins thought, studying her captain. Renninger was a case in point. He towered over her, which required her to cant her neck back uncomfortably to stare up into his furious face. He took a step closer to her, an intimidation tactic she'd seen work all too well on his junior officers. She stood her ground, hands on her hips.
"You panicked." Renninger's voice was cold. "Just admit it."
Collins' shook her head in denial. "I didn't. You just saw the last four seconds of the engagement. Prior to that, it was inbound on threat profile. Under the circumstances, the only option was to shoot."
"The only option you saw, you mean."
"I don't understand."
Renninger hissed a frustrated sigh. "I think you know exactly what I mean. You've got a reputation around here, lady. The Navy isn't all that big. I know what you were like on Ramage-and what you did."
Collins's stomach curled up in a knot. Of course he knew-that unspoken knowledge had lain between them ever since she'd started her Executive Officer tour on board Jouett four months ago. That she'd been selected for it at all still amazed her. She'd taken it as a sign that the forces in power had deemed she was worthy of a chance to redeem herself, and she hit the decks running for this tour, determined to be the best Executive Officer that ever graced the deck of a destroyer. Or any ship, for that matter. Her selection was all the more sweet after her earlier conviction that she might as well resign then and there from the Navy.
"If you've got any questions about what happened on board Ramage-"
He cut her off with a sharp gesture. "I don't have any questions. I know exactly what happened. You mutinied."
"That's not how it looked to me at the time," she said. "You don't understand-you weren't there. We had torpedoes inbound, this Reserve female commander who was on board was making what I thought were some extremely stupid decisions. And she was running from a fight-that submarine wolf pack had both the USS Weeks and our allied British forces pinned down in a killing field. And she ran."
"Turned out she was right, though, didn't it?" Renninger said, his voice dripping disgust. "If Bailey hadn't gotten back to the bridge, Ramage would be sitting at the bottom of the English Channel with Weeks. Wouldn't she?"
Collins nodded slowly. "As I said, at the time-" "If you ever get a command tour-which I sincerely hope you never do-how would you feel about having a mutineer assigned as your Executive Officer?" he snapped. "Just makes you feel good about the whole chain of command, doesn't it? About duty, loyalty-all those core values we talk about." Renninger looked as though he were about to spit on the deck in disgust. "I should have known better than to let you on board this ship."
"And what precisely could you have done about it?" Collins spat out, now goaded beyond all possibility of self-restraint. "The Bureau makes the decisions about who gets the XO slots, not you. The last time I heard, the Navy didn't give commanding officers veto power over those decisions."
"You're right, they don't. I don't know what kind of political pull you've got to get you special treatment like that, but it doesn't wash with me. By the time you leave this ship, you'll have fitness reports that say you ought to be assigned to a tug for the rest of your life. No, not even that-nothing that floats. How about duty as a public affairs officer?"
Collins turned pale. "You won't even give me a chance."
He nodded. "That's right. You've already had one. And you blew it."
"I suppose Senator Williams' son would get the same treatment?" she flared. Now that Renninger had made it clear that she had no future on board Joueu, there was nothing to lose. She'd finish out this tour, do the best job she could, and then retire.
"Senator Williams' son is just another lieutenant as far as I'm concerned."
"Yeah, right," Collins muttered. "What was that?" he snapped.
Collins 'stiffened to a position of attention. "Nothing, Captain," she said, her voice cold and formal. "Is there anything else?" She made a small movement, as though to leave his cabin.
"Now that you mention it." He thrust a message at her. "You might as well read this. I could leave you in the dark-hell, I ought to."
Collins took the message and scanned it quickly. It was dated only two hours before, and was a flashpriority "Personal For" message from the Chief of Naval Operations to Commander Renninger.
FROM: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
TO: COMMANDER D. RENNINGER, COMMANDING OFFICER, USS JOUETT
SUBJECT: EXECUTIVE OFFICER; RELIEF AS